My farming introduction

avatar

Farming and homesteading are a big part of my life and of my blogging content. The past couple of years I have written a lot of posts related to that but of course no one has read all of them so when @ecoinstant asked to SHOW US YOUR FARM AND GARDEN I thought that it is a good opportunity to try to summarize my doings in one compilation post! You probably know by now that I am better in taking pictures than writing words but if you are in the mood for reading you'll find a lot of links below to answer all your questions :)

_MG_7959.jpg


1. Olives

The majority of my land is dedicated to olives. I live at Crete, in Greece and olives are part of our diet and our culture for ever. Not far from my home there is an olive tree that is more than 3.000 years old and next to it, a Minoan settlement. Among the archaeological findings there is an olive mill, indicating that people valued this exceptional fruit since the ancient times.
Producing extra virgin, high quality, organic olive oil is a complicated and yet fascinating occupation and I am glad to get more into it year after year!

Olives harvesting and olive oil extraction.

01_MG_1183.jpg

13_MG_1299.jpg


Edible olives. Harvesting and curing recipe!

_MG_1068.jpg


2. Fruit trees

Scattered around the olive trees there are many fruit trees and nut trees that add to the biodiversity of the farm land and provide for our home delicious and valuable food!
When the time comes almonds, walnuts and carobs, lemons, oranges and tangerines, peaches, apricots and pears, figs, pomegranates and grapes, berries, apples and loquats, they are all in the reach of our hand!

December 2018

_MG_1128.jpg

Tangerines


January 2019

_MG_2588.jpg

Blooming almond tree!


March 2019

_MG_2955.jpg

Blooming apricot tree!

_MG_2957.jpg

Blooming peach tree!

_MG_2946.jpg

The first leaves of a pomegranate!

_MG_2958.jpg

The first leaves of a vine!

_MG_2965.jpg

A brand new fig tree coming to life from a branch I stuck in the ground last year!


April 2018

_MG_0817.jpg

Plums

_MG_0713.jpg

Carobs


3. Vegetable garden

Growing our own vegetables to cover our home's needs, was a must do, since we embraced a rural way of living. And even though we had our generous share of failure in the beginning, we are learning from our mistakes and gradually increase our self sufficiency.

All the plants are from local varieties that we grow from the seeds that we keep each year or we find from other farmers.


March 2019

_MG_3005.jpg

Blooming lupins!

_MG_2950.jpg

Broad beans ready for harvesting!

The summer vegetables have sprouted on the seedbed!

The shape of life

IMG_7680.jpg

Squash

IMG_7671.jpg

Zucchini

IMG_7655.jpg

Tomato

IMG_7622.jpg

Okras


Happy new month / June 2020

IMG_8790.jpg

IMG_8803.jpg

IMG_8814.jpg


Better late than never

IMG_9795.jpg

IMG_9787.jpg

IMG_9800.jpg

IMG_9790.jpg

IMG_9778.jpg


Happy new month / December 2019

IMG_2792.jpg

IMG_2805.jpg

IMG_2829.jpg


4. Bees

The first time I attended a hive inspection was five years ago and it was thrilling! Bees are amazing creatures, the perfect example of collective work and much more interesting than anyone, that isn't familiar with them, might think. I was astonished when I realized that every hive has its own character that changes when a new queen bee comes! Over time I could tell if something is wrong by their sound and I could understand if a day is just not the one to annoy them!

My first bee hive come as a present during a dinner party where I expressed my interest about them. A beekeeper that was there offered me one of its own even though we have never met before! Just one more taste of the Cretan hospitality!

My first honey harvest

_MG_3412.jpg

_MG_3587.jpg

_MG_7957.jpg

_MG_7999.jpg


5. Chicken

The chicken coop is the latest addition to our homestead and as it turned out when the first chicks were born, the most fun one!

Our hens are from local breeds and they can hatch their eggs on their own, so we just provide for them a safe environment and leave nature (and the rooster) to do what is meant to be done!


Day 12


The natural way

IMG_8256.jpg

IMG_8247.jpg


Happy new month / July 2020

IMG_96092.jpg

IMG_9629.jpg


It is amazing to watch those tiny feather creatures. It is even more amazing that they already have character individuation! The white one, for example is way more fearless and much more of an explorer than the rest.


Happy new month / August 2019

_MG_6402.jpg

_MG_6392.jpg

_MG_6400.jpg


6. Herbs and foraging

The herb garden is my partner's kingdom! Fotini is very keen on growing our own herbs and collecting from the ones that grow on their own at the rewilded edges of the farmland.


Herb harvesting

IMG_9361.jpg

IMG_9373.jpg

IMG_9400.jpg

IMG_9370.jpg

IMG_9285.jpg

IMG_9331.jpg


On the wild side

IMG_7755.jpg

IMG_7709.jpg

IMG_7843.jpg


Hopefully the pictures talk for themselves

IMG_8575.jpg

IMG_8579.jpg

IMG_8614.jpg


7. The dream

All the above are the result of 6 years hard work from us but it could never had happened if our ancestors hadn't cultivated that same land and planted all those trees that now flourish under our care. Our dream though is to gather all the local flora and introducing some new one, in one place, creating a food forest.
That was our goal from the beginning of our rural adventure but the first attempt was a flop. Of course we may never achieved the desired result from this specific attempt but we gained in knowledge and experience and I like to think that it was part of the path that we had to walk to find ourselves to the point we are today!


Project failed

IMG_8570.jpg

IMG_8541.jpg

IMG_8552.jpg


Farming experiment

IMG_7310.jpg

IMG_7345.jpg


My first hugelkultur bed

IMG_7184.jpg

IMG_7288.jpg

IMG_7904.jpg

The hugelkultur beds are my latest project and I have to say that I am excited with the first results. The picture above is taken at the end of April, when I finished it and the ones below a couple of days ago. In between I watered it just one time! And let me remind you that we are talking about the Greek hot summer. I have watered the regular vegetable garden during the same time more than 20 times. This is truly revolutionary!

And my Moringa looks so happy among the vegetables :)
Can you spot it?

IMG_20200712_200232_1.jpg

IMG_20200712_200503.jpg

All the pictures and the words are mine.

Thank you for reading and if you want to know more about me you can check out my introduction post.

Commenting, upvoting and rebloging are highly appreciated!



0
0
0.000
17 comments
avatar

Your garden really looks amazing! I'm looking forward to have something like this on my own. I know it is hard work, but it is work that you do for yourself and not for anyone elses dreams.
I read a lot about food forests the last weeks, such a good thing, really looking forward to read more about that project of yours :-)

0
0
0.000
avatar

I hope you'll find the land that will invite you to work on it!

0
0
0.000
avatar

Oh my, this looks so wonderful and your photographic talents are amazing. Touchwood and hope you get a good produce.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Loved seeing the photos from way back to the present. Most are so lovely or interesting. I remember the post when you dug the hugelkultur bed and all the rocks and broken tools. Cool to see it doing so well.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Great compilation! What a treasure too that you can and do photograph it all so beautifully.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Thank you so much Sara!
Actually I am very happy too, that I managed to balance my love for photography with my love for the land :)

0
0
0.000
avatar
(Edited)

Asset 5.png

I love to see your garden grow by leaps and bounds, I remember seeing your column a couple of months ago and it seemed to me that your work is really dedicated and done with love.

It was wonderful to see that not only were there pictures but also in a nice quite complete writing you guided me through your amazing seedbed.

Asset 5.png

diyocoi1.jpg

Your post is wonderful and that's why it has been manually curated for @adiwathrive by @auelitairene.

Our project seeks to motivate our community to develop content in different branches of life. It doesn't matter if you speak English or Spanish, our foundation is based on the principles of balance, harmony and consciousness. Click here if you want to know more here

Our account is supported by @naturalmedicine and @imagenius, so our vote also rewards with and interesting amount of the LOTUS token.

If you want to join our project, delegate to @adiwathrive and receive our support with upvotes, reblogs, mentions and contests where you can win in HIVE and more. Find Out How to Delegate Here!

We encourage you to use the #adiwa #lotus #naturalmedicine or #adiwathrive tags so we can always marvel at your posts and share them too.

Asset 5.png

0
0
0.000
avatar

Hi @adiwathrive! I`m here to help :) If you want to delegate, please make a comment (for example replay to this one) like this:
I want to delegate X sp to @user
Where X is the amount of SP and @user is the steem user you want to delegate to. For example:
I want to delegate 100 sp to @fotostef
@tipU will answer with a delegation link. Hope this helps!:)
0
0
0.000